As Knicks rookie shooting guard Damyean Dotson prepares for his first NBA training camp, the Houston native will have a lot on his mind. Dotson, who has lived in Houston his entire life and spent the last two years of his college career at the University of Houston, arrived in New York during Labor Day…

Kristaps Porzingis is finally getting a taste of winning. After two losing seasons with the Knicks that followed his rough final year in the Spanish League, Porzingis is part of a Latvian national team that is becoming the surprise of the European Championships. While Porzingis didn’t put up big numbers, unsung Latvia stunned Russia on…

Has Berman even watched a single minute of the FIBA championships? #10 has been the best Latvian player so far by a lot and KP has been totally unimpressive against second tier NBA players head to head.

KP is a good shooter, excellent blocker/rim-protector, and below-average rebounder and passer. He needs:

1. Strength- to box out, rebound, get good position. He seems to know this now, is working on it, and against lesser talent (Great Britain, Belgium), can take advantage. He still needs time and effort if he wants to get stronger. He may never be a “strong” center.

2. Coaching/System/Point Guard- to get more efficient catch-and-shoot, pick-and-roll/pop opportunities. Offensively, this can be a game changer for him. It’s too bad.

That’s really what he needs most. The first he is working on, and the second can be solved without Phil/Melo/Rose, and hopefully under Hornacek. Interesting thought is if this year stinks, Hornacek may be replaced by Blatt, Mills’ friend who supposedly wants back in the NBA. Not sure what I think of Blatt, at all.

KP will get there. Frank is gonna be the guy who gets him the ball where he needs it. This year it will be a little rough cause Frank is a rookie although Sessions will at least play the right role (if not well). We’re gonna suck again this year with our without Melo (hopefully without). We may not be top 5 bad and that will piss people off who want a top pick. But we’re on our way. KP, Willie H, Frank, Hardaway…even Dotson, Ron….we got some youth now and we got time to develop those young players. Even if KP isn’t a “superstar” he should continue to improve and is a good starting piece I believe. Give Frank 2 seasons and he’s gonna be our start full time and will be setting up KP all the time. He’s a smart player and kid.

We’ll continue to add through the draft the next couple of seasons. We’ll be able to add another FA piece or two in the next few years as Melo, Noah and Lee come off the books. I like where we’re at right now. The team and organization just needs to keep their eye on the long term and not get caught up in the now because inevitably when we lose the media is gonna laugh at us and say its the same old Knicks. That’s when this franchise panics. We can’t do that anymore. Phil made a lot of mistakes and the NOah/Melo contracts are still gonna hurt us, but he did dig us out of the draft pick hole we were in and that’s pretty huge for us. At the very least we should add another top ten pick next summer.

“I think the new owner in Houston putting stupid, Dolan-like pressure on Morey to pull the trigger is our only hope.”

Give it time, there are a lot of forces working in our favor. Melo wants to go there, his banana boat buddy CP3 is pulling hard for it I’m sure, and the Knicks front office seems to have grown a pair and is holding out for a good offer (at least for now).

@ 10 – Sessions is a stop gap. Signed to a vet minimum. He also doesn’t think of himself as a superstar who needs to prove he’s the man. I’m not expecting miracles. I’m expecting a place holder while Frank learns the ropes.

I enjoyed watching #31 for Latvia shoot free throws. He catches the ball from the ref and just raises it above his head and kind of flings it. No bounce to get in rhythm, looks awkward, yet he hit every one that I saw.

@12 – Swifty, I’m with you all the way. Sessions is a stopgap. I really don’t want to be good because we need another lottery pick – hopefully a high one. A core of KP, Frank and Wily is a great start. I too have hope that THJr, Dotson, Kuz and even my sleeper Jamaraz will emerge as big time contributors. They are the ingredients for this soup. We just need to let it stew for a while until it’s ready.

His career stats across the board are significantly better than last season’s stats and the season before last was also much better than last season, so there’s something to be said for the injury theory.

Even if Sessions is indeed similar statistically to Rose when healthy, he has lower usage (and should be even lower if he does start) which is better for this team, as we should be looking for developing the youngsters instead of having a black hole of a PG.

I certainly don’t think he’ll be good and I dont mind it, there weren’t substantially better options available and if he’s downright terrible just cut him and move on, he costs nothing.

It’s still hard to imagine very big changes because well, most of the teams on the NBA are going to be even more concerned about their ability to fill seats and develop a decent team, and small market teams are a lock to go hard against this. If it’s fine tuned to lessen the benefits of tanking without destroying smaller teams it would be great, yeah.

The tanking problem is probably overstated. The league benefits when the worst teams get the best picks, tank or no tank. Some minor tweaking is good I guess, but the best defense vs. tanking is having good teams at the bottom. Last year, every team with a draft pick won at least 24 games and only 5 teams won less than 30.